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Saturday, 18 December 2010

Get 6-pack abs without useless situps

My good friend Dr. Kareem (Dr. K), is one of the top experts in the industry in Physical Therapy and Kinesiology.

Kareem even came out to visit me in Colorado for several days a couple months ago to hang out and do some skiing and other outdoor fun.

During his stay, I quickly realized that this guy knows more about exercise programming (as well as fixing injuries) than almost anybody I've known in the fitness industry.

I have an article today for you that Dr. K wanted to contribute (also be sure to check out Dr K's surprising story at the bottom)

**The Fastest Way To Get A Six Pack Without Doing Any Sit-Ups
by Dr. Kareem F. Samhouri, CSCS, HFS
Metabolic Fat Loss & Fitness Expert

Sit-ups suck.

They're boring, they make it hard to breathe, and they are not nearly intense enough to get a great result. Think about it - when's the last time you couldn't get your 6th rep of a sit up?

They don't work muscular strength. They work muscular endurance (and over-shorten your abs) - most of us need more muscular strength, not endurance.

If muscular endurance were all we needed, then why does everyone on the Cat Walk of treadmills at your local gym look the same month after month after month?

Did you ever think about that before?

The same guys and gals running at 9mph, sweating their last drip of H2O away as they run at a continuous pace for 45 minutes never seem to change shape. They look the same in my gym as they do in yours. That's not because cardio is bad; that's because they have the wrong strategy in mind.

Do you have the right six pack abs strategy in mind?

Let's take Jenny Brown and Eric Foster for example:

Jenny Brown doesn't look very fat, but she's not happy with herself at all. You see, she's never been really strong, and she's been struggling with her weight for years.

Her family is all heavier than she is. They don't seem to think there's an issue, and they keep eating her favorite foods in front of her. Each time she's tempted, she gets on an Elliptical or Treadmill and tries to 'burn off all the calories.'

In the first 3 weeks of doing this, she actually manages to lose half the weight she's been trying to lose for years - she loses 7.5 pounds - only another 7.5 to go.

3 more weeks go by, and now Jenny gets on the scale again - she weighs an extra pound.

"That's horrible," she thinks, as her pants all of the sudden feel tight and her shoulders slump. Now she decides her chest is saggy too, and she just feels ugly, but she keeps at it.

3 more weeks, down 2 pounds - she's now down 1 pound from her original amazing streak of wt loss.

Only thing, Jenny got fatter. She lost muscle. When we took her body fat measurement, now 9 weeks in, she went up by 2%. It's only a matter of time until Jenny puts all of her weight back on... while continuing to watch what she eats. This is a shame.

Okay, so how about Eric Foster?

Eric Foster is a former athlete, who used to run high school track and field. Since then, work got crazy (and so did drinking on the weekends), and he now weighs an extra 60 pounds.

He exercises for half the time Jenny does, but he basically only warms up, then interval trains. Then he does a series of carefully planned out giant sets, challenging his body with new exercises every time he works out. Even though he feels uncoordinated half the time, and he isn't lifting all that much weight (in fact, because of his weight issue, he's basically down to mostly bodyweight without having the onset of low back pain.)

3 weeks go by - Eric's down 6 pounds - 54 pounds to go.

"Sweet" he says to himself, "I'm going to hit my goal in another 9 weeks. I'll be there before summer."

3 more weeks go by, now he's down 12 pounds. "On pace," he says to himself.

3 more weeks go by (now on week 9), and he decides to step on the scale during a flex-break from staring at himself in the mirror.

"Oh my God," he exclaims - "I'm down another 9 pounds - how could this be?"

So Eric flew off to the local gym and had his body fat assessed - down 4%!

I know why Eric's down 9 more pounds & lost 4% body fat. He built muscle. That muscle kicked his metabolism into over drive, and his body started craving more food. He also chose exercises that helped 'organize' his nervous system & recruit more muscle. He fed his body, as most former athletes know to do, and it burned up all the calories and then some.

Eric's muscle raised his metabolism.

The dynamic exercise routine fooled Eric's body into thinking he needed more muscle to cope with "the challenging new environment" he lived in.

Jenny's plain old, boring exercise routine taught her body to cope with this increased demand by lowering her heart rate and blood pressure (both good things, granted) so she could last longer.

Obviously, Eric's body changed more and his program was more effective for fat loss.

The Moral Of The Story:

Eric just needed to know how to speak 'Neuro' and he was all set. Once he wasn't speaking gibberish to his body anymore, and he learned to have a conversation, the work was already done for him.

So what's the purpose of exercising so much if you're not going to look amazing after all that sweat and hard work?

In Double Edged Fat Loss, I teach you how to Exercise Less, Benefit More.

I hope you'll join me below for an Unusual Fat Loss Story as I unveil a story that puts Jenny & Eric's story to shame. As it turned out, it had nothing to do with Eric 'being a boy,' did it?